


Ethereal

by venaefica



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Anxiety?, I think?, M/M, basically meeks is an aroace legend, so they're probably out of character lol sorry, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:35:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25714405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venaefica/pseuds/venaefica
Summary: Steven Meeks has kissed Charlie Dalton plenty of times. Well, scratch that. Technically speaking, Charlie Dalton has kissed Steven Meeks plenty of times. Steven's kissed Charlie maybe ten times if you're being generous, and he's asked Charlie to kiss him a solid three or four.It's not that he doesn't like to, because kissing Charlie is good, but it still feels weird, it feels bad, for lack of a better word, but no, yeah, it's good, really really good.
Relationships: Charlie Dalton/Steven Meeks
Comments: 6
Kudos: 40





	Ethereal

**Author's Note:**

> oof ouch i wrote this because i wanted to kiss my gf and steven/charlie is my emotional support pairing. but then it got weird and it hit too close to home so i said. "hm. let's post this to the internet. maybe people will like it." so i guess.. here we are.  
> also i live in fear that one day i'm gonna talk about my adventures on ao3 too much and my gf is gonna check the tag for steven and charlie and she'll find me. but uh. that's probably a non-issue. (but if ur reading this and ur my gf uh... ignore the part about kissing being gross. uh......)  
> and uh apologies for the formatting i wrote this on my phone and pasted it over so..... yikes

A sliver of moonlight poured through the gap between the blackout curtains. Steven, completely lost in his thoughts, wished he’d had the foresight to leave his curtains open for once. That is, of course, until he managed to tear his eyes from his ceiling, where he watched the shadows of branches dance in the only available pool of light. His gaze fell to Charlie, who was close enough to Steven that he could feel his body heat, but far enough away that the distance was searing. Something about the way his profile was silhouetted against the soft glow of the moonlight seemed absolutely ethereal, and suddenly Steven’s ceiling seemed a lot less interesting than it did moments earlier. 

Bashful and shy as ever, Steven kept his eyes on Charlie, who, again, looked absolutely ethereal in the cool light. It was Charlie who finally broke the silence with a soft hum and an eyebrow raise. 

“Just thinking...” Steven managed after a moment “about how much I’ll get my ass handed to me in Latin tomorrow.”

Charlie laughed, which was a sound that Steven would live in if he could, and said coolly “The day you fail one of those tests is the day I pass, and trust me, Meeksie, I’m not passing tomorrow. I know that’s not what you’re thinking about. Nice try though.” He let out another small laugh, and if Steven was any weaker he might have just died on the spot. 

“C’mon babe, whatcha thinkin’ about? You can tell me.” Charlie turned so he could face Steven, and Steven hoped to god his breath wouldn’t catch in his throat again (it did. it always did). 

Steven answered with something that almost resembled words, his face flushing what was perhaps one of the brightest reds possible as he did. Then he shook his head before burying himself in Charlie’s shoulder. “I promise, Meeksie,” he repeated, “you can tell me.”

Nausea washed over Steven. It was sick of him to want what he wanted. Even considering that Charlie was his boyfriend, that he and Charlie had kissed countless times before, that if he asked, Charlie would smile and take Steven’s glasses before getting on top of him, it was still sick, more sick that it was what Steven wanted, that it wasn’t just something he was doing because Charlie asked him to and he was happy doing whatever would make Charlie happy. 

He stayed silent, just thinking for a moment, for hours maybe. When he finally asked, his voice came out shaky and muffled, but Charlie wasn’t going to make Steven repeat himself a third time, especially since the first time, as rough and slurred as it was, it was still understandable enough.

“Of course I’ll kiss you, dummy.” 

He put his hands on Steven’s shoulders, gently moving him so he was lying on his back, and he moved himself so his knees were on either side of his boyfriend’s hips. “Oh,” he said after a moment, laughing to himself, “your glasses.” Charlie took them from his boyfriend and leaned to place them on the desk.

The lean caught Steven off guard; the way Charlie’s hips dug into his felt sickening, but the good kind, the kind he wanted to relive over and over. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him when a soft noise escaped his lips. He still apologized, now feeling more nauseous than ever. It might have been the good kind of nauseous, it might have been the bad kind, Steven wasn’t sure. What he was sure of though was that he wanted to throw up, or maybe he just wanted to cry -- Nevermind, he wasn’t sure of anything. 

“Hey now, don’t be sorry. I think it’s cute,” Charlie said, taking both of Steven’s hands and pinning them to the bed before leaning in, his face just an inch or two from Steven’s.

God damn. 

“Besides,” Charlie continued, lowering his voice, “If the hottest boy I knew was on top of me, I don’t think I’d be able to handle myself either.” 

Steven made another small noise, dismissing Charlie’s words, hoping Charlie would just kiss him already. Charlie, of course, was nothing if not a tease, and he wasn’t about to give in that easily. 

He let go of Steven’s right hand, opting instead for the bottom hem of his sweater, giving him something to play with while he decided which direction he was going to move his hand. 

As it turned out, he didn’t have to move his hand very far at all. The small gasp Steven let out as Charlie’s fingers grazed over the side of his hip was more than enough to let Charlie know he had found the right place. If he had any less control, that’s the spot Charlie would have kissed first. He knew better than to start there; something like that definitely had the potential to kill Steven immediately. Instead he started with the corner of Steven’s mouth. In reply, Steven moved slightly, allowing his lips to touch Charlie’s. And again, ever the tease, Charlie brushed his hand along Steven’s hip before actually kissing him. And if Charlie was in any other mood, or under any other circumstance, he would have loved to grab the other boy roughly, to kiss him until neither of them could remember how to breathe, but the other boy was Steven, and Steven needed to be dealt with gently. If they kissed for long enough, they could work their way up to something more Charlie’s speed. It’s not like they hadn’t done that before, on nights when Steven was particularly struggling with some assignment and, at least in Charlie’s eyes, was desperately in need of a distraction. 

This had the potential to be like those nights, but, though Charlie was impulsive and rash, he wasn’t stupid, he knew his boyfriend, and he knew that if he wanted to get under Steven’s shirt, or in this case, wide-necked, loose, maroon sweater, he had to be gentle. 

..

Charlie was getting impatient. It wasn’t actually Steven’s fault, just that he made so many cute little noises whenever Charlie did anything, that he could feel Steven’s heart racing, that Steven’s hands were running up and down his back, that, at some point, the neck of Steven’s sweater had shifted, leaving one shoulder completely exposed to the cool breeze of the evening, and, god, the light smattering of freckles across his collarbone and shoulder, he wished he had a word for it. 

Fuck it. Charlie Dalton was nothing if not impulsive.

Slowly, because he was still kissing Steven, which meant he still had to be gentle, he let his kisses drift down Steven’s neck and to his collarbone. 

Steven let out a breathy moan, his nails starting to dig into Charlie’s back, something that would normally embarrass him, but he wasn’t thinking about anything like that anymore. 

“Babe,” Charlie breathed between pressing kisses to Steven’s collarbone, “Do you trust me?” 

He received a shaky, breathless yessir, and in mere moments, Steven’s sweater was thrown over his desk chair. 

For a moment, scratch that, for many moments, Charlie stopped kissing his boyfriend, opting instead to just look at him, one hand still glued to the spot on his hip, the other gently caressing his cheek.

“Ethereal,” Steven whispered, barely audible. 

Charlie ran his hand across Steven’s hip again, causing Steven’s entire body to shiver, “What was that Meeksie? You have to speak up baby,” he teased. 

“You. Absolutely e-fucking-thereal,” he repeated.

“Ethereal,” Charlie echoed, “That’s Latin?”

“Greek.”

“Whatever.” Charlie rolled his eyes before lowering himself back down on top of Steven, pressing hot, intense kisses into his chest. 

Time passed. Or maybe it didn’t. How was either boy meant to keep track? Ask Steven, he would say that it took him hours to say anything again. Ask Charlie, he would say that it was just a moment. Logically it was somewhere in the middle of their answers, but so many units of time lie between a single moment and multiple hours that perhaps it would have been easier to guess if neither boy had an answer at all. 

“You can — ah — keep going lower if you — nnh — want,” Steven managed, interrupting himself with a soft noise every time Charlie’s lips grazed across his skin. 

Charlie happily obliged, allowing his kisses to drift slowly towards the spot he had found on Steven’s hip. 

The nausea (the good kind?) got worse each time Charlie moved lower, and Steven was starting to lose it. He was sure he was actually scratching up Charlie’s back enough to leave marks. His breathing was so ragged, Steven was surprised he was breathing at all. And every time Steven made any sort of noise, Charlie would kiss him more intensely, which had to be a part of some kind of awful, vicious cycle. 

From there, Steven couldn't remember much more. At some point, he moaned Charlie’s name, something Charlie had taken as an invitation to straddle Steven’s hips again and press rough, desperate kisses all over his face. Everything else was a blur until he woke up the next morning, Charlie still lying on his chest. Steven felt nauseous again, but this time, he was absolutely sure it was the good kind, the kind he only felt because he loved the absolutely ethereal boy on top of him.


End file.
